Leisure Centres to Be Brought Up to 'Acceptable Standard'

Council puts funds aside for investment in Roehampton and Putney


Putney Leisure Centre. Picture: Google Streetview

Participate

Sign up for our weekly Putney newsletter

Comment on this story on the

March 5, 2024

Two leisure centres in SW15 are to benefit from increased investments after the council agreed to spend £3.6million on upgrades on facilities across the borough.

The money is to bring the facilities up to an ‘acceptable standard’ and will see new play centre at the Putney Leisure Centre plus a revamp of kitchen in Dryburgh Hall, renewal of sports and studio hall flooring, improvements to the accessible toilet/changing area and air conditioning upgrades. Roehampton Leisure Centre will see a renewal of roof coverings and sports and studio hall flooring.

Upgrades to swimming pool filtration vessels, door replacements, new lifts and boiler repairs or replacements are also planned at various leisure centres.

The council’s finance committee approved plans on 27 February to add schemes totalling £44.4m to the authority’s capital programme up to 2027/28. The committee previously approved a capital programme totalling £293.2m in October last year. The executive will approved the planned additions this Monday (4 March).

A report by council officers said the extra investment in Wandsworth’s roads and pavements, decarbonisation and sustainability projects, immediate upgrades required to leisure centres and other schemes would make the borough “more attractive”. It added the main planned additions to the council’s capital programme include an extra £3.6m in its leisure centres to bring them up to an “acceptable standard”, a further £19.8m to improve roads and pavements and £2.2m to decarbonise properties it owns.

Labour councillor Jeremy Ambache praised the aims of the planned investment at the meeting as he said the borough had fallen “into some state of disrepair in terms of… our capital assets, highways, footways, leisure centres [and] family hubs”.

Fenella Merry, executive director of finance, added the leisure centre upgrades would “bring those assets up to a standard where they will be able to be used for many years to come”.

The report includes a list of works planned at the leisure centres which would be funded by the extra investment. As well as the two local centres, facilities the Balham, Tooting, Latchmere and Wandle Leisure Centres will all see money spent on them.

Charlotte Lilywhite - Local Democracy Reporter

 

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More

This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism.

Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets.

We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more.

However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site.

One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute.

If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.